Reintegration: a Gryphon's Tale
by Drakonseye
Summary: Set a year (give or take a few days) after the story Aftershock of Malefor. Shara begins to worry when Cyrus disappears on the job. And when strange things start to happen, she realizes that not all gryphons want to come out of hiding. Summary sucks, M for themes and possibly adult languages and content. Reviews preferable!
1. Chapter 1

This is my only disclaimer: I dont own any Spyro characters, be they from the Spyro the dragon series or the Legend of Spyro series.

If you have not read the first story, Aftershock of Malefor, I would strongly advise you to do so. However, this story is set roughly a year after my first story, and a short catch-up of relevant events will be included when needed.

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_Shara_

Shara didn't mean to wake up so early on that morning. Then again, she mused, she doubted anyone _wanted _to fall out of bed and onto a lot of rocks. Brushing herself off as she stood up, she quickly checked to make sure she hadn't roused the white dragon she had slept with, she brushed the tent's flap aside and stepped out to enjoy what part of the morning she could before her work interrupted her. The sight that greeted her was one of dozens of identical tents, sprawled out among a few actual buildings where rations were kept.

As the morning suns hadn't even begun to show, save for a light reddish dawn glow over a mountain range, Shara decided she wouldn't wait for the suns for light. Casting glances around her to make sure nobody was watching, she raised both hands to begin tracing the gryphic symbols for "light" that she had learned years ago, in what had seemed another life.

She had not always been the dragon she was now. Before that final fight against Malefor that Spyro had saved her from, she had been a gryphon, doomed to an exile for a matter that deep down she knew she couldn't change. Following an attack on her village, she had left to try to save her close friend Niko from death.

After crashing through one of the temple's walls, the resident dragons had taken her in, and welcomed her. But not long after, Shara had been changed (somehow, nobody could tell her why) into a dragon, albeit a bit differently shaped. Then, not long after that, she had gone to the investigation site to prevent the gryphons from being rediscovered before they were ready.

Shaking her head to clear it of memories, Shara traced the last rune into the air that would finish the intended spell. Her arms tingled as a curtain of fire not unlike elemental gloves wrapped around them. Then that fire condensed into a small ball, and it was surrounded by a hinge of metal– a lantern.

She saw signs of life coming from other tents ahead. Cursing, she traced the one-runed sigil for "conceal" into the air, causing the lantern to dissipate. Anymore, it seemed like whenever she tried to use her arcane skills, she always had to stifle it before anyone saw. Except Cyrus, she was training him.

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_Cyrus_

Cyrus groaned as he woke to the last call bell– again. Waking up to that sound was never good, as it meant that the free time for breakfast was coming to a close. Shuffling towards the open with a yawn, he glared at the morning light before hurrying toward the cafeteria to get a chance at the last few mornong rations.

He met up with Shara by the front door. She had her hands held behind her back like she was holding something heavy, but still greeted him as though she was just relaxing there.

"I guess you're finally awake?" Shara asked him as soon as he reached her side. She stood up, then held a small platter of his favorite camp foods– a glazed waterfowl (usually a duck) and a pile of berries. "I saved this for you."

"I love you so much. You're the best," Cyrus said, pecking her on the cheek as he reached for the food.

Picking up one of the berries, he stopped short when he felt a cold snap and it stuck to the tip of his tongue. "Wha– ged ith off!"

Shara laughed. "You look so funny..."

"Thith ithn't funny!"

"Alright, alright, I'll get it off." She gripped the tip of the berry lightly, then melted it with a quick burst of heat. "Now..." She brought his nose up, and they shared another short kiss before he resumed eating.

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_Cyrus_

Cyrus sighed. While he knew that the gryphon tribe that was clearly trying to keep hidden were doing their best to STAY hidden, he and Shara were having a tough time covering their tracks. This time it was a bloody rag in the middle of a marsh, likely torn off of a shirt to stop the bleeding from a cut from the razorvines. Thankfully, neither of them had had to erase memories– yet.

He snapped back to attention as he heard voices behind him, just after a patch of reeds. Hushed, as though he wasn't meant to hear them.

The first voice was a deeper toned voice– male. "You're sure that that's him? If it isn't we'll have a very difficult time explaining this one to the council."

A lighter voice replied. "He's the only one closer to the lost one we're tracking down. He might even help us take her back... home." She said 'home' like it was somewhere she didn't get to often.

_Who are these people? It sounds like they're talking about me. _Cyrus wondered. He crept through the small layer of undergrowth separating him from whoever was talking.

Then he halted in confusion as a babble of voices rose up, swallowing the quiet debate of the two voices.

_"Shh! Conceal yourselves!" _The two voices suddenly cut out. He stepped through the last line of plants, but nobody was there.

Senses still on high alert, he checked every corner of the small clearing. He stopped moments later when he heard a rustling behind him. Somehow, whoever had been in the clearing had slipped out behind him.

Hurrying after... whoever he had heard, he burst into another clearing, much like the last. But it was marshier than the last clearing, and there were footprints leading to a single point in the center, where they stopped.

He still couldn't see anything. But that didn't mean they weren't there...

Charging up a breath that Shara had taught him, he focused on his sight and exhaled, releasing a cold fog across where they ought to have stopped.

Much to his surprise, a pair of gryphons shimmered shimmered into the visible spectrum in front of him– a young, tanned female gryphon with teal colored eyes, and a larger, darker colored male with deep brown, almost golden colored eyes. That was all Cyrus was able to observe before the male's fist connected with his face and he crumpled to the ground.

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_Shara_

There was an unusual uproar of chatter that evening when everyone returned to the mess halls. Apparently, they found what they hoped was a tablet with religious symbols etched on it. Shara snorted. _Fools. I know that that's just a child's drawing. There's no meaning to it, except that that child's parent was exceptionally careless._

What concerned her more was that Cyrus hadn't gotten back yet. He was unwaveringly back for lunch break, and took the rest of the day off with her trying to contact her tribe. But now, it was far past sundown and Shara hadn't seen him anywhere.

Spreading her wings, she took flight and winged her was into the marsh. Then she kneeled by a low– hanging bush, and drew out an amulet from the folds of the robe she wore. It glowed faintly, far less brightly than when she had first created it to preserve her friend in death. His conciousness was long gone, but she could still harness what was left of his energy to power more taxing abilities, or to find other people she cared for.

Now it was just a matter of where Cyrus was.


	2. Chapter 2

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_Cyrus_

"Ohh..."

Cyrus sat up, his head throbbing. After holding his head for a short while, he stood, taking stock in his surroundings. He was in a small, wooden room, with bars on the far side blocking the entrance. A cell.

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. Then the large gryphon he had uncovered a while ago stepped into his field of vision.

Cyrus stepped forward. "Why have I been taken here?"

The gryphon shook his head. "Cyrus, you have to realize, I couldn't care less about you. The only one I'm looking for is Shara."

Cyrus circled in his cell. "How do you know those names?"

"Me? We've been watching your investigations since they began. And none of your search parties have found my people." He looked back up at Cyrus. "Until you destroyed our cloaks two days ago."

"Two days..." He looked back. "That means you're about to have yet another uninvited visitor."

His captor's stance tensed. "What do you mean?" He asked uneasily.

Cyrus laughed. Then the smile melted off of his face. "Oh, come on. After all of your watching us, you haven't noticed how close Shara and I have gotten?"

"We don't know where Shara is. Only that she's in the group trying to find us." He paused. "Is she the one that you sleep with every night?"

"Yep. And I might add that that's sort of creepy that you know that."

"Then if she shows up, we'll know who to let in. After all, we don't harm anyone we know." He turned and walked back up the small staircase.

Cyrus snorted. "Then why'd you punch me?" He muttered under his breath.

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_Shara_

She knew she was close to finding Cyrus. The invocation she had used was a simple one, where blinking offered her an image of where to go until she reached her destination. The image was staying the same, so she knew that they were below her as she hovered above the world.

As she prepared to blow away all of their arcane cover, she wasn't surprised to see a representative from the village below decloak as she approached. She was a light tan color, with the equivalent of a large tattoo over a patch of scar on the lwft side of her neck. She was clearly a seasoned warrior, but the look in her eyes suggested she was also a brilliant tactician and negotiator.

The gryphoness flew hastily, hovering to a stop slightly below Shara. She took in a breath, then breathlessly began speaking.

"Don't do it. We know what you want, and if you reveal where we are to the rest of the world, you'll definitely be killed for it."

Shara cast an affronted glare at the gryphoness below her. "And what do I want?" She challenged. She continued focusing on her spell.

Instantly her rival snapped to agression, grabbing Shara and plummeting hunderds of feet to the ground with her.

Shara knew that she eould be able to survive the fall, even if it would hurt. But the gryphoness falling with her would be crushed by Shara's size, and would also die simply from the height. Because of these facts, she rolled so she was below her opponent just before they hit the ground.

Her back slammed into a rock as she landed, and pain exploded in her leg as she felt it crumple against another spur of rock. Black spots exploded across her vision, and briefly she saw the gryphoness stand shakily before she blacked out entirely.


	3. Chapter 3

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_Cyrus_

Cyrus was starting to be unnerved. There had been a lot of commotion about a few hours ago, and from what he could tell the entire populace of the gryphon village had rushed out to view something surprising. There wasn't a single gryphon in sight, and he was beginning to grow tired of seeing the same cell walls every hour of every day.

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Yesterday

_Cyrus padded to the front of his room. Then he snorted to himself. When did this become MY cell? he wondered. There was a guard outside his cell, the same one that he suspected had knocked him out._

_Rapping on the bars to gain attention, he asked, "Why have you taken me here?"_

_But once again the only answer he got was a hostile glare from the guard. Stepping back, he pondered what he could do to get out. It was possible that he could freeze the bars then shatter them, but that wouldn't be enough to get past the village; he was sure that there was more security outside. Cyrus knew that the only way he'd get out was if Shara actually did arrive._

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Present time

The first sense Shara regained was her hearing. She wasn't yet aware of where she was, but she heard fervent, almost reverent muttering around her. Then she started to regain feeling in her arms and legs. A bolt of pain shot through her leg; it forced her to sit up, and her back arched and spasming in agony. Eventually, the pain faded, and she opened her eyes as she regained her bearings.

What came into focus was bleary, but she could see that someone was standing by her. That blurred shape said something, but it sounded like they were both underwater. Shara looked around the room again. She felt a tingle run the length of both of her arms and looked down to actually _see _her arms faintly glowing silver. Now it seemed she wasn't impaired at all.

The figure that had been standing in front of her was the same small, tan gryphoness with crimson tattoos of flames running along the side of her face and neck that she had fought for a short time after speaking with her for an even shorted time. She wore rather evocative yet practical clothes, having almost unnoticable shorts reaching only a few inches down her legs and a light fitting armor for her chest, showing as much skin while covering her privates and protecting vital organs.

She stepped forward. "It's good to see you awake so soon. To be honest, the only reason I'm in here is just to make sure you aren't unsupervised."

Shara groaned. It was better when she couldn't hear well. Now she couldn't make sense of what she had heard. Grasping on one of the pieces, she asked, "So soon? What do you mean by that?"

The gryphoness gave her a strange look. "Okay... how much do you remember?"

She rubbed the back of her neck amd looked away. "I remember you grabbed me. We fell, and... and..." she trailed off.

She stepped forward again, this time to sit down by Shara. "Your back was broken and your legs shattered." She gave Shara a grateful glance, then continued. "I have to thank you, though, for saving my life by risking your own."

Shara returned the look. She could see herself becoming friends with this individual. "I'd return that sentiment... but I don't know your name."

She looked briefly mortified at the thought. "Sorry! It's just... well, we all know you so we forget you might not remember us. Although... we were all pretty young when you left. I'm Meghanna... but just call me Meghan, it's less of a mouthful." She held out a hand in greeting.

Shara returned that gesture. "Well now, lets get going, shall we?" She tried to stand up, but her legs crumpled under her.

Meghan shot forward and caught her before she faceplanted. "Phantom pains," she explained briefly. "They should pass quickly while you're awake. Care to take a tour?" She led Shara to the door.

Outside the room (the infirmary, she assumed) there wasn't much to see, save for a on the other side of a large, grassy plain and a few light and easily moved buildings. At a guess, there were only about twenty gryphons in the village.

Shara glanced toward her guide. "Why is your camp so small?"

"There are only fourteen of us. Because of that, we've tried to keep in as small an area as possible. It's two to a building, and we keep only a few things." Meghan answered.

They continued around the clearing. So far the tour had been a simple walk around the circle. Now past the seven houses, they were approaching the central hall of the small settlement. Then she stopped Shara again.

"As you might have guessed... Cyrus is here. But we don't have him just walking around, and he's not injured. So... I'm guessing you can figure out where we have him."

"You have him locked up," Shara said flatly. "And now that I'm here, I trust you'll let him out?"

Meghan shook her head. "Not me. Maybe Karashata or Valyrym... but not me." She gestured toward her neck, toward the fire pattern. On a closer look, the tattoo was covering over a large scar running just behind the artery and traveling down her back.

"I was attacked... I don't know what it was, but..." she choked.

Shara reached over to comfort her. "Hey now... shh... you're okay now. Don't worry."

She smiled weakly. "Sorry... I just.. can't..."

Shara nodded. "Take your time. Which way?"

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Shara turned down the last few stairs to the cells. As Meghan had predicted, there was indeed a gryphon standing watch at the bottom. He was an imposing figure, standing at least a foot above the other gryphons and colored a deep brown, almost black hue. He stood straighter when he saw her approach. As he shifted, she saw a large, carnage-inducing broadsword sitting against the wall.

Shara cleared her throat. "You're Valyrym?"

He nodded. "Valyr for short. You're here to get your mate, I assume." His voice was deep, but it had a gentle tone as he walked to the backmost cell.

Cyrus sat in the back of his cell, and he didn't even respond when they walked over to the bars.

Shara stepped back. "What's wrong with him?" She cried. Clearly she hadn't anticipated just how much she had missed him.

Valyr took a step to comfort her, then stepped over to the bars and heaved the door open. Only then did Cyrus react, standing in the middle of his cell in amazement. "Shara!" He yelled, running over to her and pinning her to the wall in a hug and locking with her in a kiss.

Shara would've been content to stay there forever, had it not been for the small problem of breathing. Fortunately, he picked up on that fact, and let her go, dropping back to the ground as well.

They stood there self-conciously for a minute or two, and they could see that Valyrym was trying not to choke on laughter. They had been standing there, not a care in the world, then just... standing there.

Finally, he cleared his throat. "You two gonna go upstairs or what?"

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Meghan was still waiting outside when they climbed back to the surface. She was calmer now, but her wings still flared out in surprise when she saw Cyrus.

Valyrym tossed the carnage blade over to her. She caught it with both hands, not even staggering under it's size. It was nearly as large as her.

Just then, a smaller gryphon ran up to them– a child. Briefly, she handed Valyr a scroll, then scampered away again.

He frowned. "This says our actual home wants us to meet with your search party. They want us to meet the rest of the world."


	4. Chapter 4

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_Valyrym_

"Meet with the search party?" Cyrus echoed for the fourth time. "Basically, ruin the cover that your ancestors have worked to preserve for... I don't know, a long time?"

Valyr frowned again. "That's what it says here. Although, this is rather sudden." He peered around the semicircle of gryphons, the rest of the village. Beside him stood Shara, Cyrus, and Meghan.

The phenomenon that was the gryphic council was common in itself, but the speed at which decisions were made was amazing. Valyr estimated that the current dilemma would be resolved in a few minutes.

Murmurs spread through the crowd, then died down again. A gryphon stood in the middle of the dozen, clearing her throat.

"We have concluded that, with your help" she gestured toward Shara and Cyrus "that a small meeting can be arranged." She turned toward the two outsiders. "You may lead these two to a safe location, where you met for the first time. Discretion is to be kept the entire time, so please do not interact with too many individuals on the way there."

"What?!" Valyrym exclaimed. "Why me?" Glancing at Meghan, he revised what he said. "Why us?"

Shara stepped forward. "With all respect, that may not be the most local source. That location isn't the most... public of sites."

Meghan looked as though she was warming to the idea. "Privacy is going to be useful. Why not?"

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_Shara_

Shara was slightly cautious about how their two gryphon companions would fare in the rest of society. She knew she should be happy, what with having Cyrus back AND seeing her old people again.

At the moment, they were making good time back toward the investigation site to pack up their meager possessions before continuing on their way. A vast forest stood to their right, and treetops flashed by as they hurtled through the sky.

They were almost to the camp when Shara felt her back seize up again, causing her to plummet to the ground, her jaws open in a soundless wail of agony.

[VIEWPOINT LOST]

_Reverting_

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_Valyrym_

A bolt of fear shot through Valyrym as Shara fell from the skies, and he hesitated a moment too long before swooping to help stabilize her now haphazard descent. A look of determination flitted across Cyrus' face before they disappeared through the treetops.

Valyrym alighted on the forest floor, eyes raking through the undergrowth searching for the draconic pair. A trail led through the trees, snapped branches overhead. He headed that way.

As he pushed through the trees, he saw Cyrus, lips drawn back and claws bared in a fighting stance. A large chunk was taken out of his shoulder, and as soon as he recognized Valyr he slumped to the ground beside Shara. Shara, by all looks, was fine other than the fading look of pain across her face. She reached out weakly to Cyrus, pressing her hand to his shoulder and speeding his recovery. The muscle of his shoulder writhed, then closed. The only mark of his injury was a missing patch of scales.

Meghan burst through the bushes on the other side of the clearing. Cyrus scrambled to his feet and whipped around with the same reaction... perhaps not the best thing for Meghan. She whimpered, then backed away.

Shara attempted to sit up, and Valyrym rushed forward to keep her from slumping to the ground again.

"Cyrus... can you go on alone? I can't fly right now," Shara gasped. Her back arched again, and her face contorted in pain again.

Cyrus stood. "Probably... It isn't my wings that are hurt." He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. I'll go." He turned toward Valyr. "You and Meg keep her safe, okay? You don't stand a chance if something kills her... if you make it, and she doesn't, I will hunt you down." His point made, he then flew off.

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_Cyrus_

Cyrus knew as soon as the camp came into focus that the situation there had changed. Already the large, wooden structures were in the process of deconstruction, and the vast majority of the tents were packed up. In the east wing, only his tent remained.

Checking to make sure nobody was in sight, he landed and packed his things in the small bag stored inside. A few minutes later, all of his possessions were packed and the tent stored.

"Going somewhere?"

Cyrus jumped. He hadn't heard Hunter sneak up on him, but the lithe panther was there nevertheless.

"Um..."

"Where's Shara? We haven't seen either of you for days. Is she okay?" His tone was curious, but his gaze suggested that he was very, very angry.

Cyrus shook his head. "I can't tell you that; the only thing I can tell you is that she's... relatively okay. Now if you'll excuse me..."

Hunter pulled out a short blade and sliced through the air at Cyrus. He stumbled back, the supplies falling away from him in surprise.

Hunter stood threateningly over him, the blade pressed on Cyrus' neck. "I said," he said in a dangerous tone, "where are you going?"


	5. Chapter 5

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_Cyrus_

"Well?" The harsh question rang out at Cyrus. Above him stood Hunter, his face in a similar anger; this wasn't like him. In his eyes, however, shone a guardedly blank expression and... was it regret that lurked behind the fury that Cyrus saw?

Cyrus gulped as he felt the edge of the blade sink a little further into his neck scales. He tried to edge away from the unstable panther, but Hunter was having none of it. Stepping onto the edge of Cyrus' wing, he repeated his question.

"Away." Cyrus wasn't sure what was wrong with Hunter, but the more vague he could be, the better, he felt.

Hunter knelt beside him and took the blade off of Cyrus' neck. "Good. Don't stay here. Go warn the elders that something big is going to happen soon. I don't know what's going on recently, but–" he broke off, dropping the sword and drawing his bow. He straightened, twirling around to fire at a mole that had appeared there. Then he turned back to Cyrus.

"I don't have time. People began disappearing after you left. One by one at first, then by the dozen. And yesterday... well, they arent in control of their bodies. But I, and the last few survivors have been able to fend them off." He stood again, nocking another arrow– this one blunt– to fire at a dragon. It struck her between the eyes, knocking her out.

Cyrus stood back up. "Then why pin me?"

"Go! They aren't yet aware of your presence. Warn the elders!" The targets began pouring from the forests now, and Hunter resignedly drew his blade again.

Cyrus took to the air, abandoning the tent bag for greater speed. As he hurtled away, he saw Hunter surrounded, lowering his blade in surrender and being pummeled by blows from all sides.

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_Shara_

It was near dusk before a rustling in the bushes beside Shara alerted her to the fact that Cyrus was returning. But something was different, there was more sound. It was almost as though he had others following him. Where would he have found people to go with him?

Then her eyes widened in shock as Cyrus appeared, followed by a pair of dragons. The first to appear was a bright pink dragoness who became even brighter when she saw Shara. Following her was a deep red dragon with a frown plastered firmly on his face.

"Ember! Flame! What are you doing here?" Shara said delightedly as she stood up.

Ember ran up to her and gave her a hug. "We were on our way to visit you at that camp, but we ran into Cyrus along the way... and by the way he puts it, we don't want to see where you're working."

Shara turned to Cyrus. "What's this about the site?"

"It's best that we get going. I don't think I can say it again." He grimaced, then added questioningly, "Where are our two new friends?"

"We can pick them up at the treeline. Gryphons like the stars, remember." Shara reached out and plucked the bag of supplies out of his paw.

Flame raised his head. "What?"

"Oh! Yeah, I forgot to mention why we weren't at camp. Basically we both found a painful way to get into the gryphon village and now we're bringing two of the gryphons to the Dragon Temple," Cyrus explained enthusiastically.

"I think I found a far worse way in," Shara interjected. "Now let's get going before they get stuck on stars."

After brief but uneventful introductions, the four dragons continued on the way to the temple, gryphon pair in tow. As always, observing the forestry changing to mushrooms was remarkable, as nowhere else in the world had such shrubbery. Surprisingly, the six travelers didn't speak much, apart from telling the history of landmarks. But by that evening, the temple was just visible in the distance, distinguishable from the mountain by a large pyre lit on the balcony that illuminated the reddish stone faintly.

Valyr peered into the distance. "So that's where we're travelling to?"

Flame nodded. From what Shara could tell, the fire drake was a slight uneasy about travelling with the gryphons. He hadn't spoken much for all the time that they had been flying and had been the first to offer when both gryphons and finally Ember had started to shiver from the cold. He had near-silently trudged off to find firewood.

Ember laid down beside him and murmured something in his ear. His expression changed from wary to a surprised look. Then, as she continued talking, he began to grin foolishly.

Flame stood up abruptly."I've... uh..." he drifted dazedly off into the marsh without any other comment. Ember followed him.

After a short pause, Cyrus commented, "Well it isn't hard to figure out what they're doing."

Meghan glanced up. "What are they doing?"

He stared at her incredulously. Then his head turned back to Shara. "Please tell me you got thevsame message out of their actions that I did."

Shara nodded, then drew him in close as well. "They aren't very old. Well, compared to most gryphons they're young."

Cyrus pulled back a little, glancing at the two apparently innocent gryphons. "So, basically they're childeren?" He whispered.

"It's not that they're childeren so much as they're not full adults yet. Gryphons mature mentally much more than physically. Then they don't learn about... other things until their ." Shara whispered back. "Wait, how old did you think I was?"

Cyrus muttered something under his breath that Shara didn't catch. "What was that?"

He looked up, embarrassed. "I thought you were around twenty."

Shara laughed. "Twenty? Thanks. I _was_ actually forty-seven, but if I looked twenty... well, I'm flattered."

Valyr broke in, reminding them that they had stopped speaking quietly. "Was? You don't sound so sure of yourself..."

Shara dropped her gaze. "Well... ever since I was changed, it feels like I've gotten younger. And... it also seems like I'm growing faster now. At a guess, I'm about the same age as you; I'm just smarter."

"Well... that's confusing. But..." Cyrus shrugged, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "That doesn't matter to me. I'll take first watch."

By that point it was getting dark, and Shara was barely able to see any of her companions. She lay her head on the ground, gazing through the thin layer of clouds toward the skies.


	6. Chapter 6

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_Cyrus_

Cyrus woke the next morning to find Valyrym passed out in a tree, hanging just off the ground but only off the ground because his legs hooked over the branch. Meghan was in a similar state, snoring gently while resting in the crook of a pair of large branches. Then, just as the sun peaked over the last few treetops, Valyr's legs gave way, and he was dumped out of the tree.

"AAAAAAAH WHAT THE HELL?!"

Cyrus snorted in amusement. Certainly a better way to start the morning than usual... he did feel sorry, however, for the rest of their group that they had missed it. At the moment, Meghan and the other dragons were only now blinking the sleep out of their eyes, while Valyr was definitely wide awake.

He stood, stretching cramped back muscles, then surveyed the space around their improvised campsite. He could still see the fire burning at the Temple, slowly dying down. Shara stepped up beside him, enjoying the view.

Meghan dropped down from the tree lightly, barely making a sound on impact. Shortly after, Flame and Ember padded up alongside them. Ember took one glance at the terrain and shuddered.

"It's a good thing we can all fly. Oh... hey Shara, remember when you first crash-landed in the temple?"

Shara's eyes widened. "Oh yeah... that wasn't exactly my best moment of flying. That hurt. A LOT." She paused. "Wait... how do you remember that? You weren't there for a long time."

"That was when I had amnesia, and I crashed into a rock. Couldn't fly, so I had to walk back. Took hours. I saw you on the way up the road." Ember glanced over to her, casting a sympathetic glance. "Don't feel bad, though. Dreadwings are one nasty enemy when it comes to screams."

Shara glanced at the two gryphons. They were both showing blank expressions at that point, so she clarified: "Dreadwings are pretty much giant bats that have sonic screams." Valyrym pulled back, disgusted.

On some unspoken cue, the six lifted off, continuing on their way to the Temple. The comment about dreadwings had been a sort of mood killer for the gryphons, and the four dragons were lost in memory, remembering the short relaxation period between Shara's appearance and Malefor's attack. The flight was short, and before Shara expected it they were landing by the main doors.

Flame reached forward to knock on the door, then stopped short, paw half raised when the door opened before him. A middle aged, green dragoness stood there, jaw dropped slightly in amazement at the sight of the two gryphons. Fortunately they didn't have to help her, as she recovered quickly.

"Hi there, I'm Tarinth. By the looks of your group, I'm guessing you'll want to see the elders." She walked back inside, waving a paw to invite them in.

They followed them inside, and their "guide" seemed not to realize that they had lived in the Temple before. The tour waz helpful for the gryphons, though.

"On your right is the Earth assessment and beginner classes. If and when there are young dragons again, those that are Earth elementals can recieve training here. The same goes for these–" she gestured to the next three rooms. "–for Fire, Electricity, and Ice." She continued down the hall, pointing out dormitory wings and useful rooms such as the infirmary and the mess hall.

"Over here we have more... well, special classes. In the main dojo is the martial arts training, from beginner to master combat levels. Then, there are the classes that Spyro and Cynder have held; Spyro's is for hybrid dragons, two elements and so on, and Cynder's... hers is for dragons that were tainted by Malefor, like her. Turns out that in other areas there were other pawns of Malefor to lead the apes."

"I don't see anyone here for any sort of training," Flame remarked.

Tarinth nodded. "It's a visit day; most of the pupils are out visiting their families. Some of Cynder's bunch, though... no family to go back to."

They finally arrived at the Guardian's chamber, the high red doors cracked slightly ajar. Tarinth gestured toward the door, then headed off toward the way they had come.

Shara could hear the guardians talking inside, something of a challenge event. Pushing the door open, she saw that Cynder and Spyro were also inside the room as well.

"Well, as long as my group can use their powers, they have a fair chance to–" Cynder broke off in surprise when she saw the Shara enter. "Shara? What are you doing here?"

The Elders and Spyro all stood, turning to face their group. Spyro and Cynder rushed over to greet them, undoubtedly surprised at their sudden appearance.

Spyro stepped over to Cyrus' side, and it was only then that Shara saw that Spyro had grown. Instead of slightly shorter than the frost dragon, Spyro was now just as tall as him, if not taller. Cynder appeared to have grown, too, and had a new bracer, made of gold with inlaid rubies and an obsidian/amethyst core in the middle of it.

"It's good to see you all again! And..." Spyro's voice trailed away. He had spotted the gryphons behind them, trailed back a small distance and still impressed by the high arches of the ceiling and carving of the walls.

Spyro returned his gaze to the dragons. "I think you'd better come inside before you make something happen."

Ignitus stepped forward in the back of the room. "What is this about?" His voice, though cautious, suggested he was open to whatever the visit was for.

Cyrus glanced forward to Shara. She gave a slight nod, and he padded over to the Elders, leading them off toward a side chamber.

"So... hi," Cynder began introductions. "I'm Cynder, and this is Spyro. Not sure if you've heard of him..."

Meghan stepped forward. "It's great to meet you," she began warmly. "This is the first time in a while that we've met anyone... well, new." She didn't seem to realize that she needed to introduce herself.

Valyr sighed and took a few steps forward to stand by her. "I'm Valyrym, and this is Meghan."

"Um... right. You guys here for a reason?" Spyro asked, still a bit confused by the two.

"Remember the gryphon activity I was investigating?" After a nod, Shara continued. "These two are part of that group. They were sent to find me, and they recieved new orders to reintegrate with the world. So... here they are."

A small silence followed her brief explanation. Then Ember cleared her throat. "Why don't I lead you two to open quarters?"

After the three had left, Spyro opened his mouth again. Before he could speak, however, Flame interrupted. "So what have you been doing while we've been gone?"

"Well, other than the classes we've been teaching, not that much, actually. Pretty much as soon as you left the Guardians started clearing out rooms and inviting dragons to come in for elemental training. It's optional, but the classes that arrived at first were so large that they needed help from us. And... that was our year." Spyro looked over at them. "Hey... you know if those gryphons are any good at combat?"

Shara tilted her head. "Maybe a bit of physical combat and healing magic, why?"

After Spyro was quiet for a few moments, Cynder rounded on him good-humoredly. "No, no, no. You are NOT entering our guests into a combat tournament. Especially when we don't exactly know how powerful most of them are."

"Why not?"

Shara broke in again. "Actually, that might be better for them. If they see how dragons act in a fight, then they might judge them differently from other species. Meghan definitely needs that."

"Okay, then. I guess I'll change the lineup."

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After a few minutes of their revisiting their past adventure, Shara found herself walking down the hall with Cynder, heading toward the black dragon's class. She had to admit, Cynder had certainly found some way to relax back into society. As they passed the odd dragon or dragoness, she would respond with a simple reply or dip her head politely.

"So, what's it been like for you, professor Cynder?" Shara found herself asking as they continued down the hall.

Cynder shrugged. "Most of the time I'm not even in danger of being hurt by the odd elements in my classes. Actually, the reason I became the teacher is only because I was the oldest."

Shara nodded. "That didn't really answer my question, though."

Cynder glanced over to her, then sighed. "I guess that's true... but honestly? It gets difficult to make it through my class professionally at times. They're _all_ like me– you know, nervous, socially awkward, race destroyers." She dropped her gaze, and it was clear that as much as she tried, she wouldn't ever fully forgive herself until EVERYONE else had.

She opened the door to her classroom, and Shara was moderately surprised by the layout. One quarter of the room was... Shara wanted to say melted, another quarter was windblasted, and the third was almost like the normal, educational quarter from Shara's youth– full of books.

Shara pointed inquisitively at a hole in the center of the room. It didn't really look out of place, but as they entered the room Shara couldn't see the bottom.

Cynder smirked. "And Spyro thinks his classroom is awesome. Though, admittedly his started out both bigger and with a second level." Then she explained the chaotic elements of the room. At the "melted" section of the room, dragons trained in their poison elements. Eventually, the sheer amount of poison power had warped the wall past repair, and that was the case for the wind training quarter of the room as well; the pitting was from concentrated cyclones.

Cynder invited her to the pit that stood in the room's center. Even close up, the bottom of the pit was not visible, and Shara thought she could feel a warm wind coming from the bottom.

She blinked. That heat had to come from the planet's center. Just how far down did it lead? Cynder stepped up beside her, an almost maniacally daring gleam showing in the corner of her eye.

"Care to go first?" Cynder asked.

Shara gulped, but nonetheless stepped even closer to the edge. The hole wouldn't let her open her wings unless she wanted to shred them on the stone. Then she jumped in feet first, hoping she didn't break her legs yet again.

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_Flame_

Unknown by Shara and Cynder, Spyro and Flame were heading toward Spyro's classroom, a higher arched doorway than the following rooms.

"It's been good here. For instance, there are combinations of elements that I didn't even know were possible. There have been points where my students are teaching me. It's very remarkable." Spyro shot a sideways glance at Flame, making sure he wasn't talking too much, but the red dragon remained as interested as ever.

"The best part was when we cleared out the back of the bottom level. Guess what? There's a _third_ level. And in the back of _that_ room, there was a vault. I'll take you to it, if you like." With that, he opened the door into a wide, expansive level of neat, organized class spaces, each segregated with a central circle where Flame assumed the element-mixing attacks happened. There were lights for electric charge, fire pits and targets for the respective infernos, a freezer of a class setting for ice wyrms, and a large sand pit with earthlen islands for earth training.

Flame's initial reaction was to stop and gawk at the sight, but Spyro didn't give him that choice, instead leading him toward the stairwell at the back. Just as the room did, the stairway reflected all of the different trainings that happened, formed in the image of the different elements.

At the second floor there wasn't as much space, seeming to be a more dormitory oriented level. Stone beds encircled the level, blankets thinly covering them like many of the other areas and colored in patterns: red and green, yellow and white, green and yellow. In a few cases it was even tri-colored, though he only found a few of those.

Leading him down the corridor quickly, they entered the third level, a small storage room. Flame blinked. _Hadn't Spyro said there was a vault there?_

His confusion cleared a moment later when Spyro pushed a large crate aside, revealing a small metal door. Opening the door, Flame saw the last thing he had expected to see– a vault full of dragon armors for every shape and size, and even some for other species as well.

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_Shara_

Shara lost count of how far she had flown down after a while. She had stopped counting after what felt like ten minutes, but felt that she was about to reach the bottom. She wasn't prepared, however, to splash into a pool of ice cold water.

Shara gasped as she was slapped by the frigid temperature. She looked up, and was surprised to see that she had fallen only four stories, the tiers clearly visible and heavily lit.

"You like it?"

Shara jumped in surprise and whipped around to find Cynder standing just behind her, a single trail of inky blackness seeping from her nose as she ended the illusion.

After she passed a quick heat wave to dry herself, Shara had a chance to fully take in the view. It seemed that the top tier was the dorms, followed by the level filled with crafting equipments. The third level had plenty of cages, but the prize went to the fourth level down. A maze of metal bars and walls, filled with weapons and gems and other useful items. A sword. Pieces of armor. Beds, and oddly enough for the level down, trees. Trees were growing at that level.

"It's impressive," Shara admitted. "But, the cages?" They were out of place.

"Fear training."

**Now, I know this is a really bad place for a chapter end. But honestly I ran out of content to show cohesively. Soo... that's it. Next time, everybody.**


	7. Chapter 7

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_Valyrym_

Valyrym, Meghan and Ember had been wandering toward the dorm wings when Tarinth popped up seemingly from nowhere to help guide them. It was remarkable, really. The green dragoness had appeared as soon as Ember was lost, guiding them toward down the right hall with ease.

He was rather relieved when they arrived without any onlookers to their quarters, simple stone rectangles with spaces set aside for work and both quadrupedal and bipedal facilities a separate space. A padded bed rested in the corner, and the open window facing the morning sun was nice.

Meghan ducked against the wall beside him, and he stopped, confused– this was his room. Then he heard the voices. A pair of young dragons, by the sound of it.

"What do you make of the group that arrived this morning? I heard they got to go straight to the elders, no wait! Last time I had a question, it took a week just to get on the list!" The first voice was soft one, and Valyr strained to hear her.

"Didn't something big go down here a while back? Maybe it was something to do with that. I mean, sooner or later we'll be told what's behind that door." A second dragon, colder and louder. Probably the leader of some..._ less kind_ dragons.

Valyr was standing on the doorway still when they passed by, the taller of the two a flame dragon that had a cruel sneer on his face and malice in his eyes and a young electric dragoness, who for all the situation in front of her couldn't seem to see how her partner reacted to the sight of Valyr.

"I don't think we should..." her voice trailed off. "Um... hi?" That was as much as she said before her partner shoved her back, showing an agressive pose as he stalked up to the gryphon.

Valyr hardly had time to become offended before he skipped out of the way, allowing the dragon to slam headfirst into the wall. As his opponent tugged a pair of short horns out of the wall, Valyrym flicked his hand, conjuring a small stone block behind his opponent. He tugged his head out of the wall... and promptly fell backwards over the block.

After Meghan stepped forward to place her blade over the fire drake's neck, Valyr also stepped forward, over to Tarinth and the electric dragoness. He raised his hands to show her that he was unarmed, then stepped back again, signalling to Meghan to lift the blade and let his opponent stand.

"What is going on over here?" Both gryphons jumped guiltily at the call, and they turned to see Cynder and Shara rushing over to them.

The fire dragon stood unsteadily, his nose sliced from his ramming and a large bump forming on her head. Then he turned to Cynder. "Oh, I'll tell you what happened," he wheezed. "This supposedly extinct _thing_ just came along and attacked me. It was all I could do to keep from getting hit."

Cynder glared at him. "Is this true?"

Valyr's head popped up in surprise. "Wha– no! All I did was–"

Shara cut him off, a dangerous look in her eyes. "Valyr, regardless of what you did or didn't do, just don't." With that, Shara and Cynder led the red dragon away. The electric dragoness shot him a sympathetic glance, then ran off after the trio.

Meghan's jaw dropped, the complete picture of someone offended and surprised. Valyrym just stood there, stunned. He hadn't even caused any of the damage!

He had a chance to explain a moment later when Shara reappeared, sighing. She walked directly over to him, grabbing both Meghan and Valyrym's ear tufts and dragging them into the room they were given. Then she turned to face the two.

"Okay, I know what that looks like. Both you and I know that that wasn't your fault. So what happened?"

Valyr was relieved. Briefly, he described how they had been given their room, and how he was suddenly attacked.

After he was finished, Shara nodded. "You need to take the blame, at least for now."

"What? Why?" Meghan asked, confused. "So we get them to fear us?" She ended on a more excited note.

"If you show nothing but kindness to them it's possible for you to regain their trust, and then this attack is not as believable. Attack them back, and they'll likely try to kill you. So play nice." She left again, and Valyr shook his head.

"She really likes to just randomly leave. Right, Meghan?" He looked around, but couldn't find her.

"Meghan?"

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_Cynder_

Cynder wiped her paws off as she finished cleaning out her pupil's nose with alcohol. She knew it burned like hell, but he had it coming. The knot on his head, however, was different. He wouldn't be able to train in his next step, the Comet Dash, for quite some time. Ignitus would certainly be happy about that one.

She turned to the anxious electric dragoness, who for all of Cynder's reassurances had been fretting, was pacing around outside the small medical sidespace they were in.

"Sasha, can you take your _idiotic_ brother back to his bunk?" Cynder had to catch up with Spyro in a minute to get their surprise challenge set up. It was only a week away, and they had already set the time aside for it.

Nodding, Sasha turned to the red drake. "Come on, Blaze."

After the two were on their way, Cynder began to pad back to the Guardian's chamber. Along the way Shara caught up with her, and they walked in an almost regretful silence to the doors.

Spyro and Flame were already inside, talking about some stash of armor pieces. As they walked up, Cynder melted into shadows, sneaking up behind Spyro. In a dull flash, she reappeared laying down beside him, and it took him a while to notice her.

He jumped. "Gah! Do you have to do that?" His face was stern, but Cynder could tell from his eyes and voice that he didn't mean it. He sat back down, pressed against her affectionately.

"So, this challenge, what exactly is it?" Shara asked. She had been wondering about it since Spyro had asked about the gryphons' combat skills.

It's basically an arena fight, with teams of two squaring off against each other. The last two get to have a break from whichever chore they choose, and it should help in bringing them above any mistrusts they may have of each other." Spyro said, picking up a board and turning it to her. There was a pair of empty slots at the bottom.

"So you want to enter them as a team?" Shara was nodding slowly as she spoke. "If they both win, that could seem preferential to them. Split them up."

Spyro gave her an odd look, but nonetheless changed it so the two gryphons were intermixed into the other participants.

Flame paced behind them. "But won't it be confusing if they just suddenly show up in this event? They'll probably freak out."

"Then we'll announce it later today when we tell them about the event. Just after that, we'll take them to the vault to choose their armor."

"This just seems rather odd." Everyone jumped at what was said, turning toward the back of the room. After quite some time talking, the elders had finally been brought up to speed on whatever had happened. Even Shara didn't seem to know what was going on.

"Yes, yes... stupendously remarkable, unbelievably standout, unfathomably unorthodox..." Volteer continued to speak, even though nobody paid him mind.

"That's what Hunter said. Members of the expeditionary force disappeared, and a few days ago they just... turned up and attacked them." Cyrus was leading the elders back out to them.

"What? Is he okay?" Cynder couldn't believe what she was hearing. One of her first friends was in danger?

Cyrus shook his head. "I doubt it. Even though they have numbers, they're moving really slowly and the dragons aren't using any of their elements. He's got it covered, at least for now."

"Oh, no... no, no nonono. This is bad..." Shara slumped down against the door, covering her head and drawing her knees closer to her. She looked over to Cyrus. "Were any of them making noise?"

He tilted his head. "No... why, should they have been?"

Shara stood back up, fear in her eyes. "Well, that's just great. Turns out that this is _worse_ than what I thought."

She opened the door monentarily, checking to make sure there weren't any spying dragons, or more importantly, young gryphons. Then she turned back to Cyrus.

"You remember when I taught you the control spell for small animals?"

Cyrus nodded, and Shara continued. "The one you know ONLY affects small animals for a short time. From the sound of it, a group of gryphons has begun converting our friends into their thralls. Basically, they can issue a group of them a command and they will follow that order blindly until death or it is complete."

"And your species undoubtedly uses this imperious ability to control the populace in a peaceful and tranquillizing way." Volteer began to ramble again.

Shara shook her head. "It was outlawed. The power became addictive for anyone who tried to master it. Chaos ensued, so its use was outlawed. The disobeyers were sent into exile– a death sentence, we assumed. We were wrong. And now..."

"Now they have an army," Cyrus finished grimly.

Shara turned to Spyro suddenly. "Where's the armor vault you spoke of?"

Spyro was surprised to the point of answering. "The vottom level of my classroom. But–" He was cut off when the door slammed behind Shara on her way out.

Spyro looked over to Cyrus. "Why is it she only explains halfway most of the time?"

Cyrus shrugged. "I don't know... but I have a feeling something remarkable is going to happen because of this. And it might not be good."

Spyro grunted noncommittally. "Well, should we go get her?"

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_Shara_

Shara raced down the corridor. She didn't know why, but she felt as though she was being forced to find that vault– and knew from some of her experiences in the past that her chances at the very least were dramatically slimmed if she wore armor, as it seemed to disrupt any intent from outside forces.

Finally stopping outside Spyro's classroom, she pushed the door open and was frozen in place by what she saw. Somehow, Spyro and the two gryphons were already standing in the stairway ahead of her and as she stepped back she jumped as she ran into Cynder. Turning around, she saw Flame, Ember, and Cyrus as well.

Turning to Spyro again, she grinned– he truly had managed to master time recently if the time-freeze had affected her.

Cyrus stepped forward beside her. Then, as gently as he could, he asked, "Shara what's going on?"

Shara shook her head. "Please... I don't know why but I have to go down there. It's like... if I don't, something's going to go wrong." She cast a pleading glance toward Spyro. "Just... no more of this intervention stuff?"

Spyro sighed. "Well seeing as you would just ignore is if we told you not to, I guess you'll just have to go."

"Thank you for understanding. Now..." Shara looked back to Cyrus. "Want to join me?"

Cyrus gave her a friendly shove. "I wasn't going to give you a chance to go alone anyway," he told her.

With that, the two dragons headed down the multicolored stairway. Once they were out of sight, Spyro rounded to the two gryphons.

"If those two are in any sort of trouble, I want you to help protect them in any way. Got that?" At a nod from the two, the four dragons stepped out to wait.

"So, what do you think they're doing?" Cynder asked.

Spyro just stood, gazing at the door to his own classroom. "I don't know," he said at last.

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_Cyrus_

**Clang.**

Cyrus could feel the reverberation from the door closing in his teeth. The vault was well guarded, he had to admit. The walls and door were made of a curious metal, and a dim glow reverberated from the frame as it contacted the door. As the glow faded, he felt weaker, but paid it no mind for the moment.

Shara padded through the halls of polished armor, scrutinizing every detail. Cyrus stood watching for a time, clueless as to what she was looking for. After a while though, he decided to just ask her.

"So what are you looking for?" Cyrus asked as he inspected a polished, deep blue and silver set of armor. Deciding to keep it in mind if he ever needed it, he moved onto the next.

"Something that doesn't belong," Shara answered as she moved into a section of cheetah armors. They were almost what she was looking for, but still too common; there was an entire row of those armors.

Cyrus rolled his eyes. "That's helpful," he muttered under his breath. He found another set of armor, translucent in color and paper-thin. He couldn't imagine what it would be for, but it seemed it would also be useful in combat. Then he turned the corner, and found it collapsed, the armors tarnished and piled against the wall.

"What the hell?" Cyrus whispered. He waded through the waist-high armors, wincing as he stepped on a piece he couldn't see. Brushing the "high tide" of the armor off of the wall, he found a sort of mural on the wall.

He staggered back. The Temple had been constructed by dragons, not cheetahs or moles! Paints weren't part of their natural skills, and a wall of paint would've taken years.

That wasn't the only reason he staggered back, however. The mural showed a pair of dragons, but much more like Shara was now– standing upright and tall rather than his own quadrupedal form. Battling against them was a gryphon, eerily similar to the dragons but feathered and robed.

"Uh... Shara?" Cyrus called. "I think you need to see this..."

There was a crash of metal plates behind him, and Cyrus glanced back to see her wading through them too. She stopped by his side, then flicked her gaze upward to take in the scene before her.

Shara nodded slowly, a small amount dazed by the mural. She winced as she stepped nearer to the wall, coming fully back to reality. "Cyrus, if you step over here we can clear space."

He did, then began pushing the heap of armors back, grunting from the effort. Shara laughed lightly, then began to concentrate. Within moments, the closest pieces rattled, then formed a gentle hill away from them. There was a large clear space between them and the wall now."

Cyrus shook his head in defeat. "I swear, if you weren't here, I would never get anywhere."

She pecked him on the cheek before turning back to the wall. "I know you wouldn't."

Turning to the wall again, Cyrus saw that a small passageway had been uncovered and that Shara was already heading into it.

"Shara, wait! We don't know–" he began, paw stretched out after her. But he was shut out as a block slammed down behind her.

"Shara!" Cyrus yelled. He scrabbled against the stone, but it was to no avail. The stone was incredibly thick, and he could just barely hear Shara from the other side.

"It's okay, Cyrus. I'm fine." Her voice trembled, but she didn't sound injured and she swiftly continued. "There's still a way through here and I'll see where it goes."

Cyrus called back, his voice filled with trepidation. "You'd better."

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_Shara_

Shara let out a sigh of relief; the stone slab hadn't harmed her. She was on her way through the tunnel, exploring hand by hand in the pitch-black darkness. Granted, it had shaken her, but she didn't think it was a coincidence that it had cut Cyrus off... perhaps someone was controlling it?

She let out a string of curses as she fumbled over a pile of... well, she didn't want to imagine. Dusting herself after she picked herself up, she continued more slowly after that. The passage spiralled further and further down, heating up after some time. Occasionally an ore spider would jump at her, but they weren't a problem as they glimmered in the dark. She would form a stalagmite under them, then push their bodies aside as she continued on her way.

Deeper. Further. The rough hewn cut and curve of the tunnel began to smooth, and a faint glow began to emanate from the bottom, or at least what Shara hoped was the bottom. Then, like the end of a dream, she reached something she didn't ever expect to see.

It was a paradise– at least, what would count as paradise if it was all lava. A lavafall spilled into a massive resivoir, marred only slightly by the island of cooled magma that had somehow risen in the center of the lake.

Shara stepped to the edge of the magma pool, then jumped back to the tunnel edge as the magma surged at her feet. The illusion of paradise fading, she stumbled into flight as the heat struck against her oppressively.

Quickly hovering over the now slowly rising pool, she peered into the distance– there had to be some purpose to the island, but she realized the enormous magma chamber would soon overwhelm the small landmass. At the peak, something shimmered.

Cursing, she sped out toward the small island. As she neared the rapidly sinking peak, she could hear a faint noise, and a silhouette standing near the pedestal.

Only when the last of the lower land crumbled did Shara arrive. She wasn't surprised to see there was indeed someone standing by it. Blinded by smoke and ash, she clutched whatever was on the pedestal and grabbed the scruff of the creature's neck, and took off again.

Eyes smarting on the smog, she flew up and was relieved to see fuzzily a hole in the top. She made one last push toward the ceiling, hurtling through the layers of rock so fast she felt the heat from the magma dissipate quickly.

As soon as she reached a flatter area, Shara flopped to the ground, releasing both burdens and gasping for breath. It had to be one of the worst experiences in her life; there were only shreds of clothing left on her body, the rest burned off. Her scales, normally a rich, bright brown, were blackened from ash and there were several spots burnt through the natural armor.

Leaning against tge wall, she inspected her wounds. Most would be fine, a small burn on her arm, that sort of thing. But when she shifted to stand, her leg crumpled and she screamed in agony. Somehow she hadn't seen (or felt) the large hole burned in her leg. Fortunately, the intense heat from the magma cauldron had cauterized the wound.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she cast a pain reduction charm onto the wound. She sighed in blessed relief, her agony abating briefly. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to fall asleep. Then she remembered she wasn't alone. Who had she carried out of danger?

Finally looking up and away from her leg, she gazed around the cavern, her eyes seeking whatever she had saved. As her eyes scoured the small spaces and the dark areas, she noted the tome sitting beside her– the second thing she had grabbed. It didn't have a title, but remarkably didn't have any debris covering it, either. Hefting the foot-thick book, she flipped open the cover. Inside the front page, there were a number of glyphs she couldn't read, then a number of gryphic runes. It read, _'History of Draconic and Gryphic Origins.'_

Shara shook her head. That didn't make sense! Even before gryphons had become endangered, there were minimal interactions with dragons. Her thought process was cut off, however, when she heard a drawn out, wheezing cough from her side. She glanced over to her side, and almoat jumped in surprise, her eyes widening at the last sight she expected to see.

Pressed against her side was a small hatchling dragon with pale colored scales, almost a yellowed white with pale tan wings and underbelly. Small ivory horns curled inwards toward her head, and he yawned to show small teeth, though normal for his size. Frills ran down her back, gently cresting over to appear as a continuous ripple. At the tip of her tail, a semi-full crescent shape protruded and her wingtips had small hooks on them.

The hatchling shifted, pressing close enough that she could feel her trembling. At a guess, it was hardly old enough to open its eyes. How she found her way down into that cavern... Shara shuddered. She didn't want to even imagine.

The pale hatchling yawned, and Shara was reminded of her own efforts. Within moments, she felt a rush of fatigue. Settling down into the corner, she draped a wing over the small dragoness and closed her eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Shara awoke still tired after quite some time, suddenly aware of a strange feeling in her side. Looking to her left, she saw a hatchling dragoness under her wing. Like a sledge hammer, the memories of what she assumed was the previous day slammed back into her head.

She shifted uncomfortably; someone had to be looking for the hatchling, but how she could have possibly fallen or travelled so far and through so many dangers? Not to mention the lava lake– Shara was certain she wasn't old enough to fly. But no matter what, Shara decided to protect her. Even more than the book, which was tugging on her mind more and more.

On the subject, though, how the book had survived in the embers and lava was impossible as well. Reaching carefully over her newfound companion, she summoned a light and flipped through the first few pages. There were only a number of pictures in the pages she saw, but the most remarkable one she found in the front of the book depicted a large scale battle between dragons and gryphons... something that in every other record had never happened. She read the caption underneath the picture:

_Although the gryphons' own wars scattered their numbers to the far reaches of the world and decimated their numbers, the killing blow to their race was the last great war between them and dragons. Outmatched by their superior command over the elements and flight, the gryphons were eradicated from the mainland except for the far west regions of the world and presumably small islands in the Great Sea._

Shara's eyes widened. The tome before her was the record of events before and during the race-purging war they had fought during their... more barbaric times. Then she shuddered. Gods, she sounded like Cyril again.

Well, wherever the end of yet another tunnel led, she felt it was better than where she was at the moment. Propping her numbed leg on the ground, she began an awkward shuffle up the wall to stand stiffly. Reaching back down, she "froze" the tome to her hip with magic and gently lifted the small dragoness to her chest. She glanced down checking her over– still sleeping. Not surprising; the intensity of her last actions had probably both exhausted her _and_ terrified her beyond her capacity for rational thought. Lurching forward, she gritted her teeth in pain as a bolt of pain lanced up her leg despite the amount of feeling she had numbed.

Progress was slow, but for about an hour Shara limped up the tunnel. She didn't like it for several reasons; for one, she was agitating the large hole in her leg no matter how she moved, she couldn't tell what was going on woth anyone else, and for another point she had time to think.

For one thing, she hadn't the faintest idea why anything was happening, but it so far hadn't been enjoyable. She had a lot of unanswered questions, both about the tome and the hatchling. She hadn't heard of any dragon/gryphon wars, but then again most hostorical knowledge was preserved for only the High Council. Still, though. She had the knowledge. Why not learn it?

So she came to a rest, sitting awkwardly and opening to the page she had read from before. It _was_ interesting, but she had as much time as she wanted to read that part. Instead, she flipped further in. On a page further in, there was another few frames of a battle, this one showing a battling gryphon against a trio of apes, slashing down on the first ape's neck. The second frame showed a creature much like Shara but with feathered wings, ramming its horns into an ape and driving it off a cliff. Then the third revealed what was previously the gryphon shocking the third ape with high voltage electricity... as a dragon.

There was a lengthy paragraph on the opposite page. It read:

_The relation between dragons and gryphons is not well recorded, but there was once a dragon/gryphon subspecies that could __**ALMOST**__ fit in with either race. (Scene 2) Common evolutionary ancestors allowed changes in either direction, either to dragons or gryphons. In both races, arcanely gifted members could shift into the others, though such knowledge (see SPELL SECTION, Chapter 8.) has been forgotten or disregarded by the vast majority of dragons and gryphons. As for the subspecies, their kind was obliterated, considered a "mutilation" by their relatives._

Flipping to the spell section mentioned, she quickly read down the listed magics. She was surprised by a few of them– spells that were meant to kill in agonizing ways, things never meant for her people. Some were practical, like the ability to perform a group teleport, or to preserve items for even millennia. But finally she saw what had prompted her interest.

She had found the spell to shapeshift.

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_Valyrym_

Valyrym watched nervously as Cyrus paced the floor outside the vault. He was seething with anger, occasionally snapping at one of them. But Valyr suspected he was more worried than angry.

"And you're sure you can't do anything to find her?" Cyrus hissed. He drew back to the door, pounding a closed paw on it before moving back to pacing.

"All we know is that she's still alive. Wherever she is, it is a shrouded area– that is to say, locating her is impossible," Meghan replied, fidgeting with a gadget she had created. It looked like a timepiece, but whatever it was did NOT tell time. Instead, it hummed faintly and the top glowed a dim blue-green color.

Cyrus came over and glared at her. "What do you mean by 'impossible'?" he said frustratedly. Then he shook his head. "Try again inside the vault. There's something about the walls, they block everything." He strode over and unlatched the vault, ushering them in. Then he began muttering under his breath. "Should've found her yesterday."

Still, no matter what they tried, they couldn't locate her or even find a trace of where she was, apart from Cyrus trying to pry open the stone slab in frustration. Eventually, Valyr saw Meghan slump into a corner and stared at her odd trinket and Cyrus rammed his head into the stone slab.

He swiftly decided that seeing what Meghan was doing was a smarter idea. So, walking over to her and sitting down, he asked, "What's this about?"

She waved him off, distracted. "In a second, hopefully the answer to the question that's driving him" she gestured to Cyrus "crazy." She tapped the top glass, and he noticed the glow came from a greenish-blue liquid contained within it.

Valyr shook his head. "A seer's glass? You never stop being amazing."

Meghan's cheeks flushed. "Well, I know that most of us can't get visions like Ignitus, but maybe someone else more available... like one of us, perhaps, can see something. And..." she grinned. "I changed it to be specific. Once one user chooses something to see, it stays on that image and projects it... here." She gestured to the area above the glass.

Cyrus padded over, for once not looking so helpless and frustrated. "How soon will it be ready?"

Meghan shrugged and tapped an empty socket. "As soon as we can get a spirit gem to project the 3-D image." No sooner had the words left her mouth did Cyrus sprint off at full speed toward the infirnary, now completely filled with healing and energy gems and storing a small number of the aforementioned spirit gems as well.

Valyr groaned. "There he goes again; he forgets we're supposed to be watched at all times. Do you remember which way that.. storing.. uh... place was?"

Meghan looked up, surprised. "You mean the infirmary?"

"Yeah! That place..."

Meghan shook her head good-naturedly. "Well, even if you don't, I do. It's this way." She left the room as well and followed Cyrus. Then moments later she reentered the room ahead of the ice dragon.

After a bit of carving, the opaque crystal fit snugly into the glasspiece that Meghan had created. Then she stood there, staring at the mini pool for a while.

Cyrus moved to stand beside Valyr. "What's she doing now? This doesn't seem very helpful," he whispered.

She handed the device to Valyr, who looked at it blankly. "What's this for?"

Meghan sighed. "You look at the pool, idiot. If you've got any sort of future sight, you should see whatever you're focusing on."

"Oh... okay." Valyrym didn't understand most of what she had just said, but he stared at the pool anyway. For several minutes, until his eyes were positively burning.

He was very surprised, though, when the small gem flasked into a dark, almost black hue and the air above it flashed.

"It's working!" Meghan sounded like she hardly believed herself.

An image began to appear above the small gadget, and Cyrus almost shoved his face through the projection, he got so close to it. The first thing that Valyr could make out was a roughly hewn, black stone tunnel, sloping upward and with hardly any light.

Then Shara appeared, clothes burned and slumped against the wall with a huge book in her hand. She was flipping through the pages in interest, and she stopped eagerly on a thickly-written page.

Cyrus stepped back, pointing confusedly at the picture. "That book... what's that?"

Meghan looked across the room to him. "You mean she found something in there that wasn't armor?"

"Well she didn't have it when she went in!"

"Guys... guys, look at this." Valyr gestured to the glass, drawing their attention back to the image. Shara had stood up slowly, leaving a small hatchling on the ground with the book to trace runes in the air.

Meghan scrutinized the glyphs closely. "What is _that_ supposed to say?" For once, the better spellcaster had no idea what a set of runes read.

Valyr shrugged helplessly. "Well, whatever it is we can't read it. That's just great, everyone. Really helpful." Then his eyes widened, still focused on the image where the runes Shara had cast disappeared in a puff of smoke. But the smoke didn't blow away, instead billowing over Shara. She doubled over, coughing the same cloud of black vapor. It spread to completely encompass her, and they lost sight of the entire tunnel.

"Shara!" Valyr's gaze quickly snapped to him. The white dragon looked as though he was about to try to leap into the image when the seer's glass rattled, the gem in it cracking. Then it burst, spraying the teal liquid across the room.

"My glass!" Meghan sounded more horrified about the loss of the gadget than Shara. But both of them were quickly silenced as a black cloud of vapor much like the one that had affected Shara spread across the ceiling.

The last thing the three of them were expecting however, was a small black hatchling to tumble from the cloud to land on the floor. She looked up, blinking sky-blue eyes at the group, as if asking,_ What just happened?_

As if that wasn't enough to make them completely confused, a dark shape also dropped to the ground, about the size of Cyrus. Feathered wings snapped out from each side, smoke curling from the dark green tips. Then the smoke cleared, the ceiling was clean, and the image that awaited the trio was very surprising for them.

A new dragoness stood in front of them, scaled for the majority of her body except for a smooth line of feathers down her spine to her tailtip and feathered wings that flashed suddenly and changed to more a more draconic form. On her wings and down her chest, a rich brown color complimented her perfectly.

Cyrus and the gryphons stepped forward, but he was the only one to speak. The white dragon's voice was hesitant, but he asked it anyway.

"Shara?"


	9. Chapter 9

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Terrifying. Primordial. Intimidating. Wild. Evocative.

Beautiful.

Those were all suitable descriptions for Shara, now that she had been changed into a full dragon. After a quick affirmation that it actually _was_ Shara, she had ushered them out of the room and toward their dorms. Dropping the two gryphons off at their own quarters, they were now walking down the corridor to rest themselves.

Cyrus still couldn't quite believe any of that was happening. The small white dragoness Shara had found trailed ahead of them, squeaking in delight as she rounded a corner.

Suddenly realizing there was an uncomfortable silence between them, Cyrus cleared his throat. "So, where did you find this little one?"

Her eyes softened from the guarded gaze she had held. Briefly, she explained from where she had gotten lost to escaping with the hatchling above the lava.

"When I landed us above in a tunnel–" she broke off suddenly with a gasp, her face twisting in pain as she lifted her right back leg, and immediately her thoughts flew to the sizable burned hole in her leg that she had forgotten.

Instantly Cyrus was at her side, supporting her. "What is it?" His gentle blue eyes searched hers, and she regretted not telling him sooner.

She gestured toward her injured leg, glancing back as she did so. Funny, it hadn't looked so bad until now...

In the otherwise unmarred scales on her thigh, what had previously been a small burn hole (which was admittedly painful) was now a very wide and moderately deep chunk taken out of her leg. The pristine new emerald scales around it were jagged and blackened, and the raw flesh underneath had grit and ash embedded in it.

Cyrus winced. "Shara... how have you managed to move on that?"

She flexed her wings, leaning a little more weight on him as they continued on their way. Shara's adrenaline rush from her escape was finally wearing off, and she discovered that she was incredibly exhausted. Within minutes, her breath was coming in gasps and she was practically being held up completely on Cyrus. Eventually, though, they did make it to their room.

Relief was in sight– a large, dragon-shaped curl of stone covered in padding that served as a bed. She flopped down onto the middle of the pad pile, causing Cyrus to frown at her.

Shara looked up at him innocently. "What?"

He chuckled. "Come on, move over. Can't I get some sleep as well?" She shuffled to the side, and he positioned himself to opposite her. For some time, they both just lay there, curled against each other. Then he almost jumped out of his scales as something rammed against his back with a defiant squeak. As he turned to look, the pale gold hatchling met his gaze tiredly but expectantly. She was going to be trouble...

Placing her in between the two of them, he returned to Shara. Again, she held the soft gaze that Cyrus could only assume was a motherly look.

"She's so cute..." Shara murmured. She returned her gaze to Cyrus. "If it's okay, can we keep her, at least for a while?"

He shifted uneasily. "Shara... if she belongs to anyone now they're probably searching for her. What if something happens and she gets hurt, or..." he trailed off, troubled about the possible dangers to the dragonling.

"Or nothing," Shara finished gently for him. "Look, I'm sure if we protect her together, nothing bad can get to her. We... do need to name her if we keep her, though."

The dragonling flapped her tiny wings and curled more into Shara's belly, closing her eyes and snuggling against her with a quiet chirp.

She laughed softly again, then yawned. "Although she's not giving me much choice."

Cyrus frowned. Names were never his strong point, especially new ones... at that point his mind was completely devoid of suggestions and Shara no doubt wanted at least a few soon.

"Shara... I don't know what to..." he trailed off as he was interrupted by a light snore. Shortly before he had spoken, she had finally given way to her exhaustion. His only audience now was the hatchling, who gazed at him attentively.

"Huh... you really are something, aren't you?" He murmured, then blinked. That hadn't been anything what he had been thinking just moments before.

She moved slowly away from Shara's underbelly, then jumped over Cyrus and began to dash around on the floor. For a long while, she was a blur as her sandy-colored body streaked around the room. Then, her energy apparently depleted, she performed a spectacular leap despite her size, nearly clearing Cyrus' body– nearly. She let out a squeal of frustration as she slid back to the ground.

He watched her repeat this action, then curled his tail around her midsection to lift her back into the bedcenter. She gazed up at him again, the sky blue pools of the hatchling against his own, deeper blue visage. Then her eyes flashed a deep, dark crimson color, and she began to smoke and shake. At the same time her scales turned a deep, cherry color.

But then it was over. The fit only lasted a few moments, but it left her gasping and trembling. Then she flopped against him, going limp on his chest.

Cyrus was confused by that, but if anything was to be learned from it it wouldn't be now. He eventually just lay his head down and accompanied the two dragonesses to sleep.

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_Cynder_

Even before the mindless dragons attacked, Cynder's day hadn't been going so well.

She awoke that morning, before Spyro (for once) and managed to find the planning slate she had finished the night before. It was honestly the only thing that kept her sane for her sane during her class teaching. That wasn't the bad part, but it shaved a few minutes off of her morning to find it... she'd have to hurry eating now. Stepping out of their room silently, Cynder hurried down the halls, politely greeting a few other dragons along the way.

Stepping quickly inside the mess hall, she snatched one of the pastries imported from the mainland– she couldn't remember the name of it, but there was something about it that woke her up and energized her for her morning classes.

Cynder's thoughts were snapped back to the present as she spotted one of her... less friendly acquaintances ahead of herself. She was heading directly toward Cynder, and a cruel sneer formed on her face.

"Well, look what _thing_ managed to kill our race and then save the world to gloat about it. What village was it you terrorized yesterday?"

Cynder was used to hearing the cruel taunts by then, so she simply ignored her and passed by her.

"Why can't you leave me alone, Kiora?" Also a normal response. But that was where any sort of routine to their intrractions ended. Her antagonizer huffed, turning to face Cynder again.

Kiora was close to the same general shade as Cynder was, but she was more of a gray color. Instead of a deep ebony sheen, her scales were a polished dark marble. A strip of verdance ran through her belly to her wings, and her eyes were deeper green than that of the trees in the garden she was charged with the keeping of.

"Probably going to do the same thing you did to Malefor to Spyro. Got anyone else corrupted with darkness yet?"

Cynder stopped, a ball of rage forming in her chest, one she hadn't known she held. She turned toward Kiora, tail lashing in anger and eyes sparking.

"Just leave me alone," Cynder growled. "You're overstepping your restrictions." She hoped to remind the upstart Earth dragoness her place as only a student.

Her eyes widened. "You wouldn't want to attack me now, would you?" But even as she said that, her eyes were glaring daggers at her, goading Cynder into throwing herself at her.

Cynder gritted her teeth, hardly able to rein herself in. All of the others who hated her she could ignore. But something about that dragoness just drove her up a wall.

Deciding not to reply wouldn't make her point made. But Cynder was also certain almost anything she said wouldn't help, either. So, instead of speaking she merely sighed and continued walking, knowing Kiora would follow her.

She did, nagging and insulting and jabbing harsh words at her the entire way. Then she fell silent as Cynder pushed the door to her classroom open.

She glanced back. "You're still here? Well, come on in then," she said warmly, though she was really burning with her anger.

Kiora had a surprised expression as she entered, but did enter nonetheless. She cast a wary glance toward Cynder as she entered, but as far as she could tell Kiora had no idea what Cynder planned to demonstrate.

She even had no problems as they descended to the third level, though she cast a suspicious scowl as they moved further and further into the cell block.

Cynder could feel (due to her fear training) that her guest was on the verge of panicking and running. Fortunately, though, they were exactly where her morning session was to begin- the cages in the back of the room where only someone outside could release the captive. No shadow movement, reinforced bars, elemental barriers... the whole package.

"We're here," Cynder announced. She padded over to the wall, and began opening each cell.

Kiora looked confused. "And... what exactly is this supposed to be?" Her voice quavered, and she glanced back behind her as wingbeats reverberated from the passage behind her.

"Yeah, yeah.. but you can't fly straight!"

"Says the one with the shrimp wings," a second voice snorted.

"That just means I'm younger," the first voice protested.

"That's what you said about your element problems!"

The two voices rounded the corner to reveal –what a shock– two dragons padding toward them, so deep into an agrument that they only noticed Kiora when the taller of the two, a large and vibrantly crimson dragoness with the same colored eyes, a shadowy fril, and black wings ran into her shoulder.

"What–" she broke off, narrowing her eyes at Kiora. She drew herself up a few inches to tower over her. She spread her wings slightly, casting a shadow over the gray Earth dragoness and baring her teeth slightly.

"Is she a threat, Mistress Cynder?" She growled, eyes locked onto her target.

"Enough," Cynder snapped. "Ferias, stop intimidating our guest. And I'm not your mistress."

Ferias's shoulders slumped. "Just a little?" She whined.

"Yeah! My big Sis can beat you up!" squeaked the second dragon, a tiny, solidly smoky colored whelp (even his wings were gray) with eyes that were a rich brown. His name was Tempus, he had proclaimed as he had come of his own free will. Cynder doubted it really was his name, but Ignitus _had_ been able to confirm through the Pool of Visions his claim of being Ferias's brother, and that he had also been stricken with darkness as his sister had.

Cynder shook her head. "No. Not only because it's implolite, but also because it's again time for our monthly tests. You'll need the power."

"Aww..." Tempus groaned. "Can't we skip it and do something fun? Like... moving up the schedule to the battle maze course? I've _almost_ got the shadow doors figured out, and you won't let me practice."

"No. We just have to wait for the others to get here, and then you won't have to worry," Ferias chided him gently. He pouted. Then she returned her gaze to Kiora, who stood there with a terrified expression on her face. Cynder could relate; she was by far the youngest mature dragon there, and she still felt out of place teaching the others to control their power, both for defense and to keep themselves from harming their friends.

She could also relate to Tempus's reservation– when she said "tests" it was really much worse. A necessary step toward their safety and her own.

They waited in silence, Tempus chasing the ever-present glowbugs and Kiora's head whipping about at every sound. Slowly but surely, the other students appeared, about fifteen in all. They all had the same nervous energy, threatening glances, or fighting spirit as Cynder had at some point– all due to their time spent as slaves to Malefor.

Cynder cleared her throat, and forced down a momentary swell of panic as all eyes turned to her.

"As we have done for quite some time now, I suspect you all know what we're taking part in today. However, as we have a guest with us today, I shall explain it anyway." There were a few grumbles from the crowd, but no straightforward objections. "For each of these four cages" she gestured to the wall behind her "a Fear, Poison, Shadow, and Wind dragon or dragoness will take his or her place within the cell. The rest, well..." Cynder grimaced "the rest is up to you. We will let you out when you are safe again. Any questions?" There were a few muttered complaints again, but no questions were raised.

"Alright then. Let's get to it." Cynder stepped forward into the middle cell, flanked by Tempus on her left with another dragon and the same with Ferias on her right. There was a loud, booming clang as the enchanted metal bars shut behind her.

It was a curious feeling, surrendering herself to her inner darkness. She dipped her head down, seeing smoke curling off of her scales and a dim glow on the ground from her now pure white eyes. She laughed– a beautifully multilayered and malicious sound.

Dark Cynder slashed at the bars ahead of her; they rang out in protest but did not bend. Her rage built up inside her– all those terrified faces begging to be slaughtered just out of her grasp. A scream built in the back of her throat, but it wasn't from being afraid.

The sound wave rippled toward the bars in front of her, but that stupid merciful side of herself had built the cage too well– instead of causing any of the others to go insane it rebounded back to her and gave her a splitting headache. Dark Cynder growled, but did not dare to try again. Instead she tried poison.

Acid splashed back toward her as she launched wave after wave of it, again in front of her. It sizzled and splattered onto the ground, and she bared her teeth in frustration– it stung her feet as she stepped back, spraying the acidic rocky pieces into a dust devil that still did an amazing job at being irrelevant.

Then she remembered she had one new trick, something of a new innovation. Shadow travel. Now... she needed a shadow.

She scoured the back of the cell for one. Nothing. Dark Cynder bared her fangs in frustration. The puny souls outside the cage thought they could contain her, the Terror of the Skies herself? One of them had lit up a light above each cell, and... oh dear. This was something new, or something she hadn't noticed before. She wasn't the only one in a cell, she had already known that– but the rest were as weak as those outside... almost peaceful looks on their faces.

Something triggered in the back of her head. Hadn't she been like them? She shuddered, not wanting to think about it. But he more she resisted, the more she wanted to be kind.

A few memories flashed through her mind– a... a friend. No, a mate. More memories. Purple. White. Green. Red and pink. Colors flashed before her, and with each came a name and dragon. Cyrus and Shara. Ember and Flame.

Spyro.

Cynder gasped, eyes suddenly filled with with tears. Spyro... Spyro had saved her, and for a long time she had tried to kill him. She had attacked and killed a countless number of her own kind. She needed to stop.

She shuddered again, but this time as she looked down she saw her scales again, clear and unsmoked. She saw outside the bars friends, acquaintances, students. They needed her help, and she had nearly killed them. She waved weakly with her wing to the student outside her cell, and was relieved to see them rise.

Those bars always brought out the worst in her. She knew it was necessary, but that didn't stop her from feeling terrible after anyway. Then she heard her time, and it felt like a hard shot to her gut. Even more to feel terrible about.

She sat in front of the cells, dully observing how quickly some of her students controlled their darkness, and how it took others longer each time to resurface, as she called it.

There was a slight puff of dust as Kiora sat down beside her. On her other side, Ferias and Tempus did the same.

"Is something wrong, Mistress?" Ferias asked hesitantly. She pulled a wing over Cynder, and when she didn't respond, repeated, "Mistress?"

Cynder didn't look up. "Eight minutes," she said quietly.

Tempus looked confused. "What?"

She raised her head; all three of them could see the shattered look in her eyes. "It took me eight minutes to resurface this time."

Kiora tilted her head. She still looked a little wary, but she didn't show any signs of planning to antagonize her.

"If you ask me, something like that-" she gestured to the still used cages "-isn't able to be controlled. And, uh..." she lowered her voice. "I'm sorry for thinking you were still evil."

As Cynder looked up in surprise, she noticed that the normally upbeat and energetic dragoness looked subdued and as solidly down as the earth that she controlled. As she met Kiora's eyes, the Earth dragoness' eyes flashed, as if challenging her to argue, then continued speaking.

"I... I didn't realize how much you had to keep under control, and how much all the other dragons and I, well..."

"Harassed me?" Cynder said quietly. The air pressure dropped so fast some dragons' ears popped. They clutched their heads, but neither of them noticed.

Kiora dropped her head. "Yes. But I'll do my best to help sway their views. I mean, how can you possibly have all that power and not try to kill people?" Her voice shook. "How can you _all_ have all that power?"

"Well, there have been a few fits from the newer students but nothing more than a few attempted maulings."

"What?"

"Hmm?"

Kiora shook her head. "Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I insulted you all these months, called you names and threw things at you, tried to attack you once. I was... I was wrong." She met Cynder's eyes, and she could see the regret ingrained now in her own.

Cynder sighed. Those few sentences were as soothing as any other comfort, and it felt as though someone had lifted a huge weight off her shoulders. She hadn't felt that good about herself since... wow. Since Ember had said she had forgiven her.

Still, her rapidly increasing trouble controlling her dark corruption was a problem she couldn't admit to most people. But it was almost impossibe to keep it silent– at this rate she wouldn't even be able to control when she was taken over. She was a time bomb.

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_Cyrus_

Ignitus sent the hatchling back to Shara's side. She seemed to prefer her wing as a shelter, though only when it was cold– which it was. A frosty gale had blown over the Temple Island, sealing the skies over with a sullen, stormy gray cloud layer.

"Certainly something is wrong with her, but I'm not sure as to why you brought her only to me. She is not a fire dragon. And she is not bound by every limitation that the rest of us have."

Cyrus flicked his tale. He was fond of the pale dragoness, but he was quickly getting a headache from all of the complications. First she was smoking and white eyed, and now she apparently wasn't a fire dragon. And something he didn't understand, that she was unbound? Well, she didn't have parents at the moment and she wasn't on a leash. Maybe that was what he meant.

Shara asked carefully, "If she isn't a fire dragon, then what element does she control? If we know, it may be better and easier to know what's wrong with her."

Just at that moment the baby dragoness pounced on Cyrus's tail, her teeth glancing off of his scales harmlessly. She growled, and the dull, rounded teeth sharpened considerably. Cyrus yelped, swinging his tail in a desperate attempt to dislodge the now dark and smoking hatchling. Fortunately, her bout ended again, and she detatched from his tailtip with a mulchy _schliik_. She fell to the floor, panting once more.

Cyrus moaned; the pain was exquisite. Even though her jaws were tiny, there was something to be said about attacks by more grown hatchlings. Instantly, Shara was by his tail, inspecting the damage and wondering how badly her teeth had injured the bone.

She sucked in her breath a moment later; Cyrus didn't want to look if it were so bad. "You've got to get that checked out." He started to object, but Shara cut him off. "Look, I don't want you getting sick from that."

"Just a moment," Ignitus interrupted. He hadn't taken his eyes off the hatchling since she had attacked. "You said this has happened before?"

"Well, yeah... last night at least. That's why we brought her in."

Ignitus nodded slowly. It looked as though an idea was forming in his head, but he wasn't going to tell it yet.

However, he did share some of what he was certain about. "I've narrowed down what elements she could have. Certainly she isn't of any conventional element. No, she is something new. I just wonder..." He trailed off, troubled by his thoughts.

"What?" Shara asked, both eager and wary for anything else to know about their young new companion.

"The way she had those... dark flashes is reminiscent of what Spyro struggled against after the Well of Souls. And... well, she must be powerful when she grows if she begins with this sort of corruption."

Cyrus flicked his tail irritably, then gasped in pain. Okay, he had to look. Where there were once neat, orderly, pristine scales leading into a crescent with a crystalline tip was now shredded and there were white shards, either scalepieces or bone. He hoped it wasn't bone.

"One more thing before I go to get this fixed," Cyrus said. "What did you mean that she was not restrained, or whatever you said?"

Ignitus sighed. After a few seconds of silence, he stepped over to the Pool of Visions. "You must understand, there are certain limits to what I can tell you."

He waved a paw over the azure surface of the water, and an image rippled to the surface of over a dozen dragons, some of which Cyrus recognized alongside Spyro, Cynder, and oddly enough, Malefor stood beside them. Still, this didn't make any sense, as Spyro likely hadn't met any of them, and none of them would have been standing by Malefor peacefully.

Shara seemed just as stumped as him for once, too. "What is this supposed to be, other than an impossible image?"

"These are the dragons to this date that have changed the fates of others to this day. It is a rare gift, and is particularly devastating if used for a terrible purpose. And her time is very near." He sighed, and Cyrus felt as though he had gained more questions than answers. Fortunately, Ignitus continued.

"Ordinarily, inhabitants of these realms really have only have a moderate amount of choice over their actions. The Ancestors keep watch over us, true, but there is also an amount of restriction to our lives." Ignitus glanced at Shara with some degree of confusion. "Which is why you must be one of the Unbound in regard to the gryphons. Normally changes like yours would be unthinkable. Guiding and shaping the future of the realms is rather... difficult to bear the weight of, but the responsibility to keep the world safe is not unlike that of a parent."

He chuckled, seeing the surprised looks on their faces. "What, did you think I wouldn't be able to tell that you want to keep her?"

"But... she's not even ours. Someone could be looking for her..." Shara protested.

Ignitus shook his head. "If she's here right now, likely it means something happened to her recently, and she ran away." He scrutinized her more closely. "Though, I'll say again, there are secrets of this place, that even we guardians do not even know of."

Another stab of pain ran Cyrus through, and he gasped in pain. Was the wound getting deeper?

Shara turned her attention to him again. She peered at him in concern. "Let's get that looked at." She glanced back toward Ignitus. "Can you watch her for a while?"

Ignitus nodded, gently nudging the small dragoness to her feet with almost a fatherly concern. "It hasn't been quire so long since I was tending to young ones. Consider her as safe as I could possibly guard her."

Cyrus nodded dimly, the part of his consciousness not dulled by pain agreeing that the Fire Guardian would do more than enough to keep her under control. Then he turned and padded slowly out the corridor, Shara following him out.

After their footsteps faded into the distance, Ignitus returned his gaze to the small dragoness. "Now, what to do with you so you don't kill us all..." he murmured. The hatchling, of course didn't reply.

"How much farther to the infirmary?" Cyrus panted.

Shara cast a bewildered glance at her mate. "We've only gone a short way... Cyrus, are you okay?"

The white dragon didn't respond, and jolted in shock when he ran into a dragoness he hadn't noticed was walking in the opposite direction.

"I uh..." his vision was blurred. When had that happened? Anyway, at that point it felt like a really good idea to simply lie down to take a nap. Who cared what anyone else thought?

"No, no! Cyrus!" He heard Shara calling to him, but she was talking more and more quietly. He struggled to hear her, but at that point she was whispering and what vision he had was fading out as surely as his sense of feeling.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Spyro_

Spyro rushed out toward the infirmary. He trusted his class, but still... he hoped they wouldn't be at each other's throats again.

Briefly, the gryphon Valyrym had stopped by his class in a panic, vaguely saying something about a poisoning and rushing off again.

As he skidded around a corner, he saw Cynder and a few of her students rushing the same direction ahead of them. He warped a small timing ahead of himself, and sprinted just a bit harder to catch up with them.

"Hey," Cynder panted as he caught up to them. "Did you hear about Cyrus too?"

Spyro paled. "No. What about him?"

Cynder's expression told him all he needed to know. He sped up until the others could only hope to try to keep up with him.

Spyro burst into the infirmary, spotting Cyrus almost immediately, then pausing. Shara wasn't by his side– instead, a deep green dragoness was crying, sitting by his side miserably. She almost looked like the Temple guide Tarinth, but both younger and radiating an aura of power that Spyro had only had once before encountered.

Spyro blinked. "Shara?"

She nodded, holding back tears before turning back to Cyrus and settling down again with an unhappy sigh.

Meghan returned from the supply sideroom with a package of gauzy material and sealant. She headed over to Cyrus' tail and pulled off a similar sealant layer, but underneath was a putrid, poisonous, green layer of cloth. Her head jerked back in disgust, but she nonetheless pulled the oozing piece away from his tail and used another cloth to clear away even more of the fluids. Then she placed the new fabric over the wound, and it shimmered red before melting into the holes in Cyrus' tail. A healthier shade returned to the white dragon.

They sat quietly for a while after that, stunned into shock by that afternoon's events. Spyro came to learn from Shara (now a dragon, how had that happened?) that Cyrus was poisoned by a hatchling she had found. He wondered, vaguely, if the dark elements of Shadow, Poison, and Fear were not dark elements but simply rare and exotic ones.

Cynder eased herself down to lean beside him, looking as though she were troubled by something more. He gave her a long glance; she was pale and colder than usual, and when he nuzzled her reassuringly she didn't meet his gaze as she usually did.

"Tests get you down again?" Spyro murmured. Cynder looked at him with a surprised expression, then nodded wearily.

He draped a wing over her, and she blinked gratefully. Spyro watched the other dragons mill restlessly around, while the gryphons Valyrym and Meghan used their limited medical skills to tend to the poisoned half-wyvern.

Something big was about to happen... Spyro could feel it. He didn't want to upset the others, but instead padded out of the room silently, Cynder accompanying him. There was a hatchling he needed to see to believe.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Valyrym_

_Thum_.

Valyr stirred from the trance he had been in healing Cyrus. It sounded like someone had fallen outside, or dropped something heavy. He paid it little mind; it was a noise he had heard before. Then he continued rewrapping the unpoisoned bandage over the white dragon's tail. Again.

_THUM_.

Whoever it was had terrible grip strength. He thought about stepping outside to help, but stayed from an old rule. His healing teacher had ingrained a rule to his mind– care for the patient first. Whoever it was would have to wait for his help.

**THUM. CRUNCH.**

The floor shuddered, and dust fell from the ceiling. A sound rose up in the distance– the Earth elder calling battle instructions.

Valyr cursed himself; he should have realized it sooner. He glanced over to Shara, and she had apparently heard it as well. She jumped to her feet, cast a regretful glance to her mate, then rushed out the door. Ferias lifted her head from the floor, then nudged Tempus to his feet. Valyrym jumped to his feet as well, and glanced toward Meghan.

She met his eyes briefly, then waved them off. "Go! I'll be fine. I'll keep watch on him."

Valyr needed no more encouragement. He heaved the heavy doors open and streaked out the door, Kiora following the two of Cynder's students. As they came to the forefront of the temple, they saw a near full-scale battle underway. It was there that the young gryphon witnessed the potential of unified dragon combat.

Earth dragons held up massive walls, funnelling the enemy cheetahs and moles and dragons into openings that limited their strength. Ice dragons were scattered through the ranks, paired either with the fortifying groups or Electricity dragons to create dangerous ice slicks or sharp, razor-tipped spears. Instant fortification. The Electricity dragons stunned their foes left and right, but more kept swelling in to replace them.

The mainline pride of the "legion", however, was the large formation of fire dragons, armored to the teeth (and sometimes more) and taking the brunt of the assault. They melted weapons, passed heat waves over entire platoons to knock them out, and generally wreaked havoc on their enemies. Unfortunately, the enemies had their advantages as well.

A behemoth golem stood in the distance, easily dwarfing the Atlawan Temple God by double the size. The enemy's moles drilled holes, sometimes breaking through underneath the dragons' feet. Cheetahs fired on the temple dragons from afar, and the dragons of their lines fired elemental blasts back in retaliation.

Each crunching noise happened when the giant golem swept an arm through the fire dragons. Their armor sparked and glanced, deflecting most of the damage, but several bore nasty bruises and it strode through them. Their fire wasn't effective; unlike the Temple God, the vines that held it together were also armored by stone. As Valyr peered closer, he saw that only one dragon stood between it and the temple's destruction. Shara was one-on-one-ing the giant.

Valyrym glanced back toward the trio of dragons behind him. Ferias stepped up beside him, and snorted. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She leaped into the air to wreak havok on the enemy forces. Kiora in turn took flight as well, heading straight for the giant golem. Tempus tried to follow them, but Valyr held him back.

"Kid, I can't let you go out there. You'll get hurt."

Tempus started to protest, but he cut the hatchling off. "Look, you want to save them out there?" When the gray dragon nodded, he continued. "Then you need to go back to your classroom and get Cynder's students. They could turn the tide of this battle. Go!"

The wind dragon shot back down the hall, disappearing down the corner. Valyrym turned back toward the battle, and flexed his wings. He had an army to fight.

The battle was long, hard, and painful, and that made it even more difficult as Valyr fought his way through the enemy's frontline. He had knocked out several dragons and immobilized a few others when it occured to him that his meelee attacks (though centered well on his opponent's anatomy) would do little unless he had a weapon.

Sidestepping a cheetah's blade and jabbing its throat with an accurate strike to send it reeling, he spread his arms. The hidden daggers from his back shot to his hands, and he furled his wings forward as protection. Weapons and armor.

He slashed at the cheetah with his new weapons, but he ducked and jabbed at his gut. Valyrym pushed the blade aside with a wing, then cross-stepped and slammed the hilt of both daggers on the cheetah's helm. He crumpled to the ground, unconcious.

Some enemies Valyr defeated in that fashion; others he slashed at support muscles in the legs and arms and left them a pile of enemy that couldn't move, and still others he caught in arcane traps that made the unfortunate opponent float or pressed into the ground.

But his opponents had no reservation toward killing him, and after close to an hour of fighting Valyr was covered in slashes, and his right wing was numb where he had been unable to divert the mace-shaped tip of a dragon's tail. He had lost one of his daggers already, and he didn't look forward to lose the other.

Another lance of pain struck his side as a sword grazed his ribs. He stumbled backward, and the green-cloaked cheetah moved swiftly to try to end him. The sword in its paw swished through the air.

_Clang_. Valyr caught the edge of the blade on the dagger hilt in a chance of luck. He twisted the blade in his hand, and both weapons dropped to the ground. His opponent, quick as he was, retaliated with a full-forced punch straight to Valyrym's face.

He fell to the ground, and as he regained his bearings he saw the cheetah had another, shorter blade strapped to his side. That short sword was now drawn and slicing toward his heart. On an instinct, he shielded himself with his good wing.

Valyr screamed in pain; it felt as though someone had taken a burning plank and wedged it through his wing, near the base. That pain stunned him, and he watched dully as the cheetah pulled the sword from his maimed body and raised it to kill him.

There was a pool of something red by his head, and he tried to move his wings one last time. He had no success, and the sword flashed down toward him.

The last thing Valyrym saw was a crimson flash before his world faded to darkness.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Shara_

Shara ducked in flight as the golem swung its arm at her. It was slow and powerful, but that worked to her advantage. She spat another Earth blast at the small of the giant's back, and it fractured at last. After an hour's attack on a single point, its armor was broken.

"Good work! Let's keep it up!" Kiora called over to her. Shara had to admit, the earth dragoness was brave. She hadn't found an easier target after being struck by it.

Shara nodded in affirmation, then flew in and slashed at some of the vines that held it together. Kiora alit on its "spine", and shook her head, calling back to her.

"Don't do that, this is better!" She said, turning back to the golem's vines and rapidly slashing and biting the central spine of the monstrosity until it snapped. The golem shuddered, then began to fall– unfortunately, it began to fall backwards.

Kiora sped out of the opening in its armor, but the golem fell faster. She disappeared, glowing green into it again as it landed.

"No!" Shara rushed down to its side, and searched the side of the stone shell. Nothing. She rammed her head into the side of it in frustration, and jumped back in shock as it crumbled. Kiora stepped out, shaking off and spitting out dirt.

She caught Shara's look of utter amazement and smirked. "It'll take more than a bit of rock to kill me," she said breathlessly. She looked tired and drained, though.

A ripple spread throughout the enemy lines. Then the back half of their army turned around and marched back toward the two earth dragons.

"Um... should we run now?" Kiora asked nervously.

Shara weighed their options. Straightforward fighting was out of the question. That left running and flying– also out of the question. The cheetahs and moles had bows and the dragons, of course, had wings. Their chances were either to hide inside the golem, or die.

Before she could suggest the retreat, however, a shriek escaped from the ground. The pure Fear in it halted the enemy legion. Cheetahs lowered their weapons. Dragons tensed and snarled uneasily.

The shriek increased in pitch until it was almost deafening. Then a black pit of shadow opened up in the ground, and a large reinforcement group of dragons burst out of the ground. Some of them spat acid over the enemy. Others swept through the lines in their own personal tornadoes, and the remaining groups swept Fear and Shadow over the archers, and they ran screaming away from the battle.

A small, gray hatchling landed beside them. "I brought the class!" he announced excitedly, which seemed redundant.

Kiora seemed impressed. "Well, you took them here. Lead on!"

With the reinforcements, the tide of the battle turned quickly. Within minutes, the enemy was either incapacitated or routed. A cheer went up from the dragon's army, but before they could celebrate any more a quake swept through the ground.

From the direction of the routed army, a trio of thin, winged figures strode forward. The lead figure had a build similar to Shara's original form, but more thickset and a slightly darker brown. A golden-silver rainment protected him, and his companions wore similar, if less detailed, silver armor. One –the female– was a stark, brilliantly white color, and the other –the male– was a dark black shade. Those two were also the same height– gryphon twins.

Unfortunately, Shara was well acquainted with them when she was younger, and she couldn't say she was happy to see them again. These three were some of the worst when it came to their malevolent nature, and their seeking of the forbidden knowledges had gotten them exiled.

The three gryphons knelt, and spread their palms over their knees. A low, muttering chant could be heard from them, and Shara braced herself from a crippling blast of magic. But as a wave of blue sparks passed over her, she felt no different– but a loud, slumping noise sounded from the army. All of the dragons had passed out. Earthen barriers crumbled, ice slicks melted. The temple's defenders were all completely disabled.

The dark gryphons stepped out over the downed bodies, carefully inspecting injuries and casualties. As they continued into the heaps of unconscious combatants, Shara followed them discreetly. Every so often they would pull aside one of their dragons or cheetahs, and take them aside. They seemed to take an interest to retrieving them, but not the moles or the Temple's own dragons. Then they stopped by another limp, bloodsoaked body. The leader's wings snapped out in shock before he could help himself.

"Stabilize him; we can't have our own just dying anywhere." The lead gryphon muttered. The two monocolored gryphons nodded, and a bright flash struck the body before they continued on.

The gryphons stopped stabilizing the fallen dragons as they picked their way into the temple, and it became apparent that the blast had only reached out to the courtyard. As the golden gryphon began to enter the temple, a green blur shot out at them– Tarinth. The green Earth dragoness let out a shriek, intending to tear the young gryphons apart. But her attack was of no use; the twins raised their arms protectively, and Tarinth was knocked backward by the wall of Wind power that blasted forward. She was rammed into a pillar in the courtyard and lay at the base, unconcious. Shara choked back a cry of surprise. That could have killed her, and it went against every code of honor that her species had. Now, in her eyes, they were no longer gryphons– they were just monsters.

Shara crept after the intruders. Every so often one of them would be ambushed by one of the Temple's attendants. Each time, a flick of the hand or twitch of a wing would cripple or knock back the attacker.

They stopped at the door to the elders chamber, and Shara hid behind one of the larger mushrooms growing wild inside the hall. Once, it was a hassle as it blocked most of the hall. Now, Shara was grateful for its cover.

The two silver plated twins stood at attention as the leader paced in front of them, thinking. Then he turned to face them.

"Calrus, Calara, search down that hall. I'm of a sense that there's another of our kind down there." The two nodded, and they sped down the hallway.

Shara knew that this could be her chance to take him down, while he was alone. With the twins at his side– no chance. But if he was alone, and if she guarded against his attacks– she could take him out.

Her plan went badly almost immediately. As she leaped at him, she discovered two things. The first was that her powers had been altered from her shift. Instead of a protective elemental shield, her spell made light burst into the room. At the same moment she tried to protect herself, the gryphon turned to face her looking unsurprised at her appearance and seeming to recognize her. He thrust out a hand, and Shara hung there, helpless.

The deep, tawny gryphon circled around her in her new prison, wisely staying out of the range of her tail. He scrutinized her, and at the same time she did that to him as well.

At nearly seven feet tall, her opponent was a massive figure, and was well muscled. His wings had expanded several feet as well, and with his armor was an imposing figure. He had a deep golden eye, the other one frosted over after Shara had defended herself from him many, many years ago. The slashing scar ran over the bridge of his snout, and above his other eye.

"Well now... this is certainly not your best behaviour. At least the last time you attacked me, you announced it first." His harsh, coldly amused voice echoed down the empty hallway as he continued pacing.

"Cut the act, Sarkos. I know this isn't a pleasantry visit," Shara snarled, struggling against her invisible bonds.

Sarkos' eyes widened in false injury. "Actually, it was going to be a pleasantry visit. At least... well, it was until you took something dear to me and left.

Footsteps sounded down the hallway. Calrus and Calara had found someone, and they were dragging that someone, kicking and swearing, back with them.

They rounded the corner, and it revealed Meghan, restrained, blindfolded, and with a nasty welt on her head. Calara dragged her along, while her darker brother carried Cyrus, limp still yet looking much better.

Sarkos shook his head. "No, no, no! I specifically said that if we found her, we weren't to be harming her. Let her down." He started pacing, and muttered, "Even your brother remembered that."

The starkly white gryphoness set her down. As soon as she hit the ground, she snapped her wrist bonds and struck Calara in the throat with a drawn elbow. As she reeled, clutching at her neck, Meghan swept her legs out from under her, and the silver-armored gryphoness hit the floor with a loud _crack_. She pulled the blindfold off, and seemed intent on attacking Sarkos.

But as Meghan met his eyes, something passed between the two, and the gryphoness quit her attack, instead hovering for a moment then dropping to the ground.

Sarkos cast a contemptuous glance to Cyrus, then another amused one at Shara. "Now you should know just one thing before I leave... the reason I am here." He nodded to the now-kneeling gryphoness, and she cowered even more. She normally looked upbeat and even defiant at times, but now she seemed the life sucked out of her.

"My other reason, well... his works in the near future will kill me. So I plan to kill him."

The gryphon began to walk back out of the entrance hall, with Meghan trailing after him and the twins following him.

Only after they had faded from view did Shara finally collapse to the ground, sobbing... She had lost her mate again... and now, not only had she failed her people, Cyrus was to die and Meghan lost to her own enemy.

She had failed.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**A/n: Well, long time no hear... although, this is quite a bit longer than the last few. Feedback is appreciated so please review! And confusions will be straightened out where necessary.**


	10. Chapter 10

**An interlude: I'm sorry, readers. But for at least the moment, I need to take a break from THIS story while I get an idea out of my head. Make no mistake, I will return to this.**

**It does feature a dragon race, but it is one that... well, hibernates and a snow wolf race at arms with them. Now, I won't tell you more, but if you're interested I can either send you a view of it, or more depending on my decisions. It won't be posted publicly; I'm taking steps to other working provisions.**

**Now and again, most people I will send at least a small part of the work if you ask. After I have finished. HOWEVER: if you receive the doc I'd like you to send the feedback I desperately need. Thanks for taking the time for reading this... hallelujah, gesundheit. **


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